There's a reason why Tolkien's books are so charming. They speak to that time before fast-paced, industrialized technology. — schopenhauer1

Not at all. Think of all the sword fights, the bows and arrows! The horses, the running, the falling, the chases, the charges, the battles! The urgency! That's not charming at all.

The characters in Tolkien's books have a meaningful sense of urgency; they actually have missions, things to do, places to be. Dragons to slay, rings to destroy.

Unlike nowadays IRL, when there is no grand narrative, and while there is urgency, it also has no definitive direction.

Truthing is circular like that. — baker

Unlike parsing, heh.

How can I find something when I don't know what that something is? — TheMadFool

The process of "discovering" truth is simultaneously deductive and inductive.
Assuming something to be true makes us able to see the supporting evidence.

Truthing is circular like that.

The fear of discovering that there’s no firm conceptual ground under their certitudes. — Olivier5

I suppose the more neurotic types have such a fear. But most probably just feel offended, righteously indignant, with no further thought given as to how come.

All this being said, there might be something in the subjects of philosophy that irrates people. — Olivier5

The words "philosophy" and "to philosophize" also have distinctly negative connotations.

When the opportunity presents itself, I poke around a little when people become irate in reference to philosophy in some way.
So far, I've discovered that they experience philosophy as a breach of their personal boundaries, as disrespect to their persons.

This probably has to do with people's tendency to strongly identify with their thoughts, their beliefs, to see them as parts of their person. So that when someone in any way steps on the metaphorical toes of those beliefs (such as by discussing them, less or more philosophically), people feel like someone actually physically stepped on their toes, or worse.

You made statements about the ancient Stoics. I responded to those statements. I think my interpretation of their position is accurate. — Ciceronianus the White

My point is that you're addressing a different problem than I.

Can you imagine a person feeling demoralized, where this demoralization doesn't have to do with "the world not living up to the person's expectations" about the world?

That said people attribute all sorts of shite to Socrates or Plato or Nietzsche or Einstein or MLK too. — StreetlightX

And to ordinary people.

On that note, I was once talking to a woman online, she must have been about 50 at the time, who genuinely did not understand what a quote is. To her, interpreting and quoting was one and the same thing. (I discovered that after talking to her a bit.)

I don't understand how someone can confuse or conflate the two, but the experience with that woman convinced me that it's possible.

So strange.

So neither you nor anyone can dismiss them out-of-hand without at the same time dismissing your own humanity. — tim wood

Do you think Donnie writes into his gratitude journal every day? Exactly.

But for you they seem to be a burden. I submit that what burdens you is not any issue of EM, but in part perhaps lawless neighbors and what to do about them - no trivial problem at all.

Why ignore the obvious?

Why should the way things actually are IRL play no part in a theory of EM?

Given, for example, that bullies usually win, shouldn't that be taken to mean that bullying is morally good?

Has it never occured to you that being honest, fair, considerate, law-abiding actually makes you a loser and an untermensch?

This is still too puzzling!

You've yet to explain what they are actually doing. What are they doing? — Outlander

Cutting into a slope and risking a landslide.
Burning trash close to the property line, so that the trees and grapevines on our side are damaged from the fire.
Damaging our fence when digging on their side.
Planting very tall trees (pines that will grow some 20 meters) in a direction that will put a considerable part of our property into complete shade.
And so on.

Are you an introvert who's disinclined to be "neighborly" with your other neighbors?

Not at all. It's these new neighbors who are on good terms only with one other neighbors (the ones who sold them the land), and their relatives who also live in the neighborhood.
It's all becoming more like life in a city, with distance and anonymity, whereas we "old settlers" are used to more cordial and considerate neighborly relations.

Like was said before there's strength in numbers. If they decrease your property value, they decrease not only their own but others around them. Which removes the "morality for the sake of morality" dynamic.

I don't understand that. What do you mean?

It’s the natural human instinct to explore, but I also think it is sometimes the sublimated longing for Heaven. — Wayfarer

Or a kind of job security: If you set out to explore something as vast as space, you'll always have something to do, your life will always be directed toward a goal, you'll always have something to be passionate about and to look forward to.
Earthly tasks are never so promising.

Humanses are a pugilistic species. The internetz merely tunes out the noise that generally prevents us from seeing people in their typical pugilistic mode IRL.

Make it about your vulnerabilities not about how irresponsible they are. — Joshs

Sure, I've been thinking about that. But what if they say, "Your life, your problem"?
Appealing to people's compassion generally doesn't go well.

Still, at face value, if they feel no desire, need, or responsibility to correct damage done either willful or unintentional, they likely don't expect any recompense or recourse when it's done to them, ie. those who are hard on others are often hardest on themselves. — Outlander

No, this are one-way relationship kind of people. They should be able to do harm unto (certain) others, but those others should be kind to them no matter what.

Interesting dynamic you say they "have connections with the local authorities". What support or evidence do you have of this?

Can't share the details here, but there is such evidence.

If those connections are worth jeopardizing the social fabric over (ie. documentable proof of conspiracy) it is unlikely you live in a poor or average neighborhood. A fact you should not take for granted.

It's a neighborhood that is rapidly becoming gentrified. And it looks like we "old settlers" are going to be pushed out.

I dare you to prove this wrong.
— baker

Say I did. Then you'd never know who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are. — Outlander

I don't understand what you mean by that.
How would showing that it's worth bothering about other people have as a consequence not knowing who the people you don't want to have around/in your life are?

I am literally living in fear for my life every day, and this guy is getting away with it.

You see, philosophy is fine, and abstractly discussing existential problems is fine -- unless one actually lives in the middle of one and actually needs a solution, on the spot.

Many philosophers decry moral realism. Yet when one looks at the world, when one doesn't ignore the obvious, moral realism is the name of the game.

The ancient Stoics didn't think that that we stand in judgment of the universe, though. They didn't believe that the universe must conform with our expectations or be condemned if it doesn't conform. According to them, we share in the Divine Reason which infuses the universe and carry a part of it within us, but shouldn't complain because the world is what it is. — Ciceronianus the White

This completely misses the point, or even deliberately detracts from it.

It is possible to feel demoralized about the world while this has nothing to do with one's expectations not being met. It's the demoralization that comes with the belief "There is no room for me in this world".

Many people were told that there is no room for them in this world, and were deprived of their property, their health, and their lives.

It's that when one doesn't meet the expectations of the world, the world condemns one. This is the reality of living in this world. How does one accept it, make peace with it?

Precisely: Why bother about other people, their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it.

some petty neighbor squabble — SophistiCat

I invite you to walk a mile in my shoes. Or, in this case, live in my situation, with such a neighbor who doesn't care if because of his actions, your house collapses and buries you and your family.

We're part of an unimaginably huge universe and fall into despair because it's not what we think it should be. It fails to meet our expectations. Doesn't it seem we're a bit too full of ourselves? — Ciceronianus the White

Not at all. This is where the ancient Stoics differ importantly from modern popular stoicism.

The ancient Stoics believed that one is part of nature, that one has something divine in oneself. As a modern person, can you really believe that?

This ancient belief about being part of nature and having some part in the divine is what makes ancient Stoicism livable, it's what stops it from being merely a quietist nihilism.
Whereas modern popular stoicism, stripped of all metaphysical foundations, is just a quietist nihilism, implicitly telling us, "You're worthelss. You should just bow your head, kneel, and accept your fate. There is no place for you in this world."

"Doesn't it seem we're a bit too full of ourselves?" -- I don't think the ancient Stoics would say that.

So you'd be very surprised if life didn't exist elsewhere, but think proving it; knowing for sure is a trivial matter. — counterpunch

In terms of costs and solving engineering problems the matter is, of course, tremendous.
But beyond that, what's the point? To find another planet for humans to destroy it?
Rather than make an effort to work things out here on Earth, the solution is to go "business as usual", and consume up another planet, and eventually, what, the whole Universe? Because mankind's appetite knows no bounds nor should any limits be imposed on it?

If the only reason for space exploration is to prove the Abrahamic religions wrong then they will have served yet another useful purpose!

That's just so pathetic.

What I want is a philosophical exposition of Buddhism at the level of basic assumptions. — Constance

Such a thing exists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhidhamma_Pi%E1%B9%ADaka:

The Abhidhamma Piṭaka (Pali; Sanskrit: Abhidharma Piṭaka; English: Basket of Higher Doctrine) is a collection of canonical texts in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.[1] Together with the Vinaya Piṭaka and the Sutta Piṭaka it comprises the Tipiṭaka, the "Three Baskets" of canonical Theravada Buddhist texts.[1]

The Abhidhamma Piṭaka is a detailed scholastic analysis and summary of the Buddha's teachings in the Suttas. Here the suttas are reworked into a schematized system of general principles that might be called 'Buddhist Psychology'. In the Abhidhamma, the generally dispersed teachings and principles of the suttas are organized into a coherent science of Buddhist doctrine.

Why? The matter is trivial. (And they're spending billions on it.)

What if space exploration is a subtle and blatantly desperate attempt to prove the Abrahamic religions wrong?! Oh!

Ethics/morality, it seems to me, is about caring for oneself by making the world a better place. — tim wood

This can mean so many things, be taken so many ways.
The Nazis, for example, too, cared about themselves by "making the world a better place".

Call it a kind of group care that flowers from the root through individuals. Or the lesson from the dialogues: no one really chooses to be bad (meaning that no one who really knows or understands anything chooses to be bad) because ultimately the bad man hurts himself.

If life is all about boosting one's ego (and there's no indication that it isn't), then one could be lying in a ditch and still think himself king.

The a**hole over there is not your warrant to be one, because if you go that way, then you're one and the world, your corner of it, goes to hell.

This isn't what the world seems to function like. I know many assholes whose corner of the world looks very nice, expensively furnished.

There is more power in your turn the other cheek than is dreamt of....

People who advocate turning the other cheek are people who never practice it themselves. Jesus didn't.

That is, morality/ethics is a set of rules, variously based depending on the system. As such in themselves no compulsive force at all.

If they're not compulsive, how can they be relevant?

So it seems to me that in dismissing them, you have simply not understood them.

What do you mean?
Whom have I dismissed?

....all that, and upon finding out what morality is, one might also find another domain to which “getting away with” has power. — Mww

I don't understand what you mean. Do say more.

I think it would be extremely extraordinary if life existed only on Earth.

To correctly judge something it's wise to first find out what that things is. It appears you have not done that. So the question: what is it exactly that you suppose ethics/morality to be? — tim wood

Like I said

things that by traditional morality, would be considered immoral or otherwise bad. — baker

and

Why bother about other people,their lives and their property, when you can get away with endangering and damaging it. — baker

I think (or at least, I used to think) ethics/morality is, to great extent, about not doing harm to other people and their property.

Groups have a much better chance of survival than individuals. Moral conduct by the majority is necessary for those groups to form. Therefore moral conduct is evolutionarily advantageous on a whole. — khaled

In other words, the behavior of my neighbors is advantageous. They are part of a group that protects them. I am sure they consider their behavior moral.

What is your point?

Of course groups are advantagoues. Gangs, mobs, nepotism, cronyism. How does this prove that morality is worthwhile?

The question is, what practical good is there in virtuous behavior regarding liberation and enlightenment? — Constance

In that one cannot meaningfully hope to become free from suffering (ie. become enlightened) if one occasionally or regularly drinks alcohol or smokes pot. Or robs banks. Or kill animals for sport. And so on.

The idea that one can have a glass of wine with one's dinner, and still be(come) enlightened is a decadent Western invention. As are many others.

And here it is the eight fold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right meditation. Well, there are a hundred ways I can think of to direct a person to a disciplined life, but the bottom line is not the virtuous behavior, is it?

The value of virtuous behavior is something one needs to experience for oneself.

The point is not this. It is liberation. How this is achieved is not a singular path, though all paths are of the same nature, which is a turning away from the many engagements towards a rather mystical unity.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no religion or spirituality that actually contains the tenet "All paths lead to the top of the mountain. All paths are equally good." Rather, this is a bit of ecumenical meta-religious/meta-spiritual doctrine that no existing religion/spirituality supports.

That term mystical is mine, and is one reason I don't care to ask the Buddha if it is authorized: when one turns away from everydayness, one takes normal standards of interpreting the world away as well.

This is awfully general. It works for, say, Nazi ideology as well: that, too, was a turning away from everydayness.

One can rightly say, there is only one virtue, and that is achieving the extraordinary state of mind, not to put too fine a point on it, achieved by the Buddha.

That's a bit like saying, "Oh, just get your own jumbo jet!"

If the Buddha was an extraordinary phenomenologist (your linked essay) then why not just do what phenomenologists do with Buddhism in the world and forget what is natural or foreign?

My reasons for distancing myself from Buddhism are several, and complex, and have nothing per se to do with Early Buddhism.

The Snow Man — Ciceronianus the White

Reminds me of this:

"Rahula, develop the meditation in tune with earth. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when people throw what is clean or unclean on the earth — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — the earth is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind.

"Develop the meditation in tune with water. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with water, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when people wash what is clean or unclean in water — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — the water is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with water, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind.

"Develop the meditation in tune with fire. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with fire, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when fire burns what is clean or unclean — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — it is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with fire, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind.

"Develop the meditation in tune with wind. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with wind, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when wind blows what is clean or unclean — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — it is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with wind, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.062.than.html

To me, rebirth is a metaphysical idea — Constance

One of the perspectives that one can derive from Early Buddhism is that an insight into rebirth follows from an insight into the workings of karma. As in: There is karma, therefore, there is rebirth. Which is why rebirth is not a metaphysical idea the way heaven, hell, etc. in Christianity or Hinduism are, or Platonic forms.

only to be approached by first observing the world.

It's difficult to have a conversation on a very specific topic when not all involved are familiar enough with Buddhist doctrine. And it's too much to try to bring in all relevant references and clarify all points of contention at once.

I mean, this is how metaphysics has any reasonable standing at all.

The thing is that in Early Buddhism, one wouldn't start off with a catechism-like set of doctrines. But, quite on the contrary, start exactly where one is at the moment.
For example, like this:

/.../ Then Mahapajapati Gotami went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, stood to one side. As she was standing there she said to him: "It would be good, lord, if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief such that, having heard the Dhamma from the Blessed One, I might dwell alone, secluded, heedful, ardent, & resolute."

"Gotami, the qualities of which you may know, 'These qualities lead to passion, not to dispassion; to being fettered, not to being unfettered; to accumulating, not to shedding; to self-aggrandizement, not to modesty; to discontent, not to contentment; to entanglement, not to seclusion; to laziness, not to aroused persistence; to being burdensome, not to being unburdensome': You may categorically hold, 'This is not the Dhamma, this is not the Vinaya, this is not the Teacher's instruction.'

"As for the qualities of which you may know, 'These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome': You may categorically hold, 'This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.'"

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.053.than.html

One could reflect this way and act accordingly, over and over again, day in day out. With nothing further, in terms of doctrinal points.
It's a kind of actionable religious/spiritual meta-minimalism that I haven't seen in any other religion/spirituality that I know of.

I am not interested in early Buddhism any more than Kierkegaard is interested in Christendom.
I look to its essential features, and by essential I mean what is conducive to liberation and enlightenment, the brass ring of all Eastern philosophy.

For this, you'd actually need to know what Early Buddhism is, which you don't seem to.

I am trying to accommodate baker, but he wants Buddhism to stay in the comfort of the 650 BCE's. This is an extraordinary time, granted, and but there was a deficit in interpretative language to explain it.

No, rather it's that you simply don't know the suttas. You're dismissing something without even knowing what it is. You're tailoring Early Buddhism after Christianity. I'm trying to show that it's not like it.

IT being meditation and the place of realization deep in the interior of the self.

Further evidence that you don't know the suttas, yet are dismissing them.
You're devising your own parallel Buddhism, and I don't quite see the point in doing that.

I lean more toward Hinduism.

In fact you do, with your implicit dogmatism, in the way you approach religious epistemology.

As I see it, there is only one basis for belief in reincarnation, and that is the metaethical argument that I have tried make clear several times here and there. Put briefly, the world is ethically impossible without something like reincarnation and samsara. It is a complex argument, but it is a metaphysical one that moves from the world to what must be the case given the way the world is, adn the world demands an explanatory extension where observation cannot go. Pretty simple, really: Why, are we born to suffer and die? is a question that haunts us. The question then goes to suffering and I have put this forth earlier elsewhere more than once. If you like, because it IS after all THE issue of the world and the self, we can discuss this.

This is actually more like what cradle Buddhists in traditionally Buddhist countries (and similarly, cradle Hindus) believe about rebirth/reincarnation and karma -- that it's a kind of grand metaphysical justice system which also provides people with the purpose and meaning of life and makes all the suffering seem worthwhile.
It's an unreflected, dogmatic approach to the issue, typical for religions and for people who were born and raised into a religion. Issues of karma and rebirth become metaphysical when they are treated in a dogmatic manner.

A more reflexive approach would be like this:

Things are simply the way they are. They don't give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering? No. It's simply a thorn. It doesn't give suffering to anybody. If we step on it, we suffer immediately.

Why do we suffer? Because we stepped on it. So the suffering comes from us.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/chah/insimpleterms.html

Or like this:

Look at the affairs of your body and mind. Now that we're born, why do we suffer? We suffer from the same old things, but we haven't thought them through. We don't know them thoroughly. We suffer but we don't really see suffering. When we live at home, we suffer from our wife and children, but no matter how much we suffer, we don't really see suffering — so we keep on suffering.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/chah/shapeofacircle.html

Or like this:

In formulating a question on the first level, you create the frame of a sentence and leave part of the frame blank. The important feature of the blank is that it’s not an amorphous hole. It’s more like the shape of a missing piece of a puzzle.
Only a piece that matches the shape and the pattern of the puzzle will fit. If you ask, “Why am I suffering?” and are told, “42,” you won’t be satisfied with the answer, for it’s not just a wrong piece from the right puzzle. It’s from the wrong puzzle entirely.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/skill-in-questions.pdf

If you fill the horn, have you not essentially painted the surface with a finite amount of paint? So it would seem that the surface cannot be painted, yet in fact is paintable. — tim wood

You painted the internal surface of the horn, but not the external one, which is bigger, even if just infinitesimally. How is this accounted for?

One may choose to believe the words attributed to the Buddha or Jesus Christ, or not, that is the beauty of freedom of religion. — Present awareness

Freedom of religion as freedom of delusion?

And worse, "choose to believe" -- IOW, epistemic trivialism as foundation for religious choice?!

/facepalm/

So all our philosophical resistance is futile.
— baker

In the short term? Yes.
In the long term? Maybe. — Gus Lamarch

So you're optimistic like that? Tell me more!

On the grounds of what do you think that our philosophical resistance is not futile in the long run?

But really, it should be with ideas, not resentment over offences to the purity of the Buddha's words. — Constance

No, for me here, it has nothing to do with "offences to the purity of the Buddha's words". You keep bringing this up, but you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not a Buddhist, I can't be offended this way.

When people make stuff up and ascribe it to someone else, it takes a lot of time and effort to untangle the mess, a mess that could have been avoided in the first place if the person would simply quote what that other person said, instead of making stuff up. It's a colossal waste of time.

This latter is more like a cult, like being hung up on Jesus' words, as the Bible tells us.

*sigh*

*sigh*

This is not the point. The point is to understand and have the explanatory resources, not to recall, but to reason out.

If you don't even understand the relevance of virtuous behavior for epistemic purposes, then I'm not sure what to tell you.




Anyway, I've been engaging in some discussions of Buddhism in an effort to find closure to my involvement with Buddhism. But it's only in these discussions lately that I've come to realize that even though early Buddhism seemed so natural to me (and still does), I'm beginning to see just how foreign early Buddhism is to many other people ... I've gravely underestimated that for some 20 years.

I'm not the one making stuff up about what nirvana is or isn't, nor putting words into the mouth of a religious figure. Unlike some.

If happiness results in sadness, why be happy? — synthesis

Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Well, karma's a bitch.

Are you black by any chance?